Jazz duo DOMi & JD Beck serve up a keyboard and drumming masterclass in their new Tiny Desk Concert

They may be lucky enough to have Anderson .Paak as their mentor, but as their new Tiny Desk Concert confirms, the prodigious talent is all DOMi & JD Beck’s own.

They may boast some serious jazz chops, but the much-hyped duo - French keyboard player Domitille Degalle and Dallas drummer James Beck - like to keep things lighthearted, with their website describing them as, respectively, “the youngest person to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics” and a “6 year old sheep investigator from Texas”.

We’re not entirely convinced about that, but we have been fully won over by DOMi’s mindblowing keyboard/bass pedal work and JD’s blistering drumming. Their Tiny Desk features four tracks, all taken from debut album, Not Tight. This includes collaborations with Thundercat, Herbie Hancock, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Mac DeMarco, Kurt Rosenwinkel and - of course - Anderson .Paak.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering how the two met, we can confirm it was when they were separately invited to the 2018 NAMM Show in Anaheim to play in an ensemble.

“It was so bad, we couldn’t hear anything,” says Beck, referring to the competing instrumental demos that frequently clatter around the convention centre. The duo have since returned, however, rocking up on the Nord stand in 2020.

Not Tight is available now on Anderson .Paak’s new label Apeshit in partnership with Blue Note Records.